


It Reminded Me Of You

by nerdqueenenterprise



Series: 100 Ways To Say 'I Love You' [2]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: (well... only for a while), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Paul and Straal have a gardening YT channel it's canon, the boos miss each other for a bit but then meet up again!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 10:42:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15095033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdqueenenterprise/pseuds/nerdqueenenterprise
Summary: Sometimes it's all work and no play.





	It Reminded Me Of You

__ _“Hey, it’s your favorite human here! Hi Paul, I hope you’re doing okay. I… I just wanted to check in with you, but you were out, so now I’m going to sit here and just leave you a little message. So… our vacation is a go, I got the time off and I booked my plane, so while I will be at that conference, we’ll also definitely get our us-time afterwards. I’m really excited, too. I miss you, love, and I think you’re gorgeous, even if you do enjoy spending time knee-deep in mud to cry over how pretty some mushrooms are. We all have our faults, don’t we? Also I think I’ll be able to relocate back to Boston soon; we’re getting the situation here under control. I’ll have to be examined when I come back of course, and we’ll have another ten-ish days where we can only chat with you visiting me at the hospital, having to wear scrubs and all that, but… maybe they’ll have the blue ones, the ones that make your eyes look so pretty. Um… yeah, work here is going well, I… I’m still trying to pick up the language, and sometimes they think I’m from here and talk to me really fast, but… I’m just as foreign as everyone else, so - hah - not a chance. But, um, all difficulties in communicating aside, I gotta say, it’s still super refreshing to work with patients who cooperate! And even though I don’t speak their language and not many speak more than a few words of English, and certainly not medical English, but… everyone’s making an effort to communicate, you know? These people… they know we’re here to help them, and we… well, most of my temporary colleagues here are very willing to work, the conditions be damned. It’s stressful, and it’s hard, and it’s exhausting, and the minute I go to bed I’m out, and you know, I’m getting a lot thinner than I’d like, but… I’ll work out again once I’m back, and so far I’m just…well, not having a good time because well, it is a medical crisis, but… you know what I mean. How are you and Straal doing? Did you fix the problem with the growth lights? I would’ve recommended duct tape, but you know more about these things than I do, so… It’s a good thing we got that double house though, because now there isn’t a second you two can’t look after your plants, and with how excited you are about them going to adopt… I don’t know, it’s just great, I’m happy you’re happy, and I feel like it’s also improving your work, and of course it makes filming for the channel easier. Um… uh, I should go to bed, my eyes are falling shut on their own. Yeah. Call me when you get this? We seem to be missing each other all the time, but I’d like to hear from you, my love. Don’t forget to sleep sometimes and take care of yourself, and I love you very much. Bye.”_

 

 

 

 

    “Hi and welcome to a slightly random vlog where I check up on the tomatoes! I’m Paul, my friend Jus is out, and you’re watching 2Fungis.

    “So, a while ago we started a little project where we wanted to try growing hydroponic and normal tomatoes, inside under a growlight and outside, and see how well they do, and we usually try to do a check in video every week, so here it is! These guys here - hydroponic to the left, soil to the right - they’ve been doing pretty well so far. We’ve had okay weather, even though it was a bit hot, so we had to water them a lot, and I just hope it has been enough. The hydroponic ones are still getting the same nutrients, and we hope that the increased amount of water for the outside hydroponic tomatoes won’t change anything there…”

Paul makes sure to show all the leaves that look a little troubled as well as the beginnings of fruits, explaining what nutrients they might need to add on top, before switching the camera off and heading inside. He does the same spiel with the inside half of the plant experiment before putting the camera on a little tripod and getting comfy in front of it.

    “So, I guess we’ll have to see whether that inside tomato plant in soil does develop a fungus or whether it just looks a little weird. We should know by next week. But that’s that on the tomatoes! Since it’s supposed to get a little cooler and cloudier outside towards the end of this week, you can expect an extra video about us hopefully finally getting started on the pond, because that’s been too much potential sun for my pale ass and Jus won’t do it on his own, but we might now actually get to start working on that! Jus has also been getting some more special seeds, and I think he wanted to make a vlog on that either today or tomorrow. And as always, we will keep you posted about our little plant children - go check out our twitter and instagram, @2Fungis, if you want to know more, and don’t forget to like this video and subscribe for more cool gardening! Bye!”

He gives the video a quick edit, nothing fancy, seeing how it’s just a check up vlog, then scrolls through twitter while it renders, retweeting a few of their followers’ plant pictures or replying with advice. Finally he tweets out that the new video will be up soon.

Straal must’ve texted him a while ago, because he’s got five new messages from his best friend, the latter ones just trying to get his attention. He replies, then switches to the phone app to listen to Hugh’s last message again. 

Paul already replied before he started recording the video, and it’s not like Hugh said anything particularly interesting other than that their fall holiday will definitely happen, but it’s so nice hear his voice again.

 

 

 

 

Paul is barely done with prepping when the new semester beings and he has around two hundred young, bright eyed botanists-to-be in front of him one Monday. So he does his usual spiel, lays down the ground rules, book recommendations and where to buy them without paying fortunes (that’s usually when most of them realize that no, he only has high standards and a resting frowny face but he actually wants to teach them and let them all pass), what to expect out of the exams, when his office hours are and how to reach him outside of them, yes, he has a youtube channel and yes, he will make bad plant puns.

    “Also, each plant joke that I haven’t heard a hundred times by now… write it on your exam or give it to me in writing with your name on it up to a week after the individual exams, and you can get up to 2% more on that exam. Also, um, there has been a recent influx of people ordering pizza into lectures, and while you are perfectly fine to do that, if it’s a pizza I like, you have to give me a slice.”

    “And which kinds don’t you like?” someone calls, making their fellow students laugh.

    “Oh, critical thinking skills, very good! I’m allergic to strawberries. I don’t like fennel, figs, butternut squashes and goat cheese.”

    “Domino’s doesn’t have any of those!”

    “Who even puts that on pizza?”

    “My sister. Are there any other questions?”

 

 

 

 

Paul just got off the phone with Hugh, stomach still warm from hearing his love’s voice (and the cup of fruit tea he’s been sipping), when for the first time this semester a student actually shows up for his office hours. They have a simple question about the essay they’re currently writing, and then they leave again.

Paul gets back to grading some tests from a different year, but not before throwing a longing glance at the picture of Hugh he keeps on his desk. It’s from their wedding, Hugh holding his mom, and they’re both crying. As was Paul when he took that picture, and it still tugs at his heartstrings. They both picked the wrong professions to never have to deal with spending time apart; they’re adults and they can live with it, but it’s in times like these when the months apart do get long that Paul finds himself wishing things were a little different. 

It’s only another three weeks though, and then he’ll get to see Hugh in the hospital while Hugh will be quarantined, and a day after that Paul has a conference, and then he and Hugh will take individual flights to meet up in a small town on the west coast for ten days of relaxation and cuddles. So it’s going to be fine.

 

 

 

 

His lab group from the Solanaceae greenhouse plans a dinner together, and they invited him, so Paul spends a very pleasant evening in a low budget but very nice restaurant. He’d asked them to drop the titles and just call him Paul very early on in the year, so by now nobody slips up anymore, and the atmosphere is comfortable.

    “So, Paul,” one of the students begins. Jaine’s got the most cheek out of all of them, and Paul occasionally has to take her down a notch or two, but he likes her nevertheless. “There’s a bit of a, I don’t know, rumor going around campus that you and your wife are pregnant, and now everyone wants to know what you’ll call the kid and whether you already know whether it’ll be a boy or a girl.”

Paul snorts into his drink. “Me and my _husband_ have given up on trying to get pregnant, I’m afraid. And he’s not even in the States at the moment. My best friend and his wife are adopting this fall though, so that’s where the rumor might’ve come from. He… Hugh and I live with him and his wife, and so the kids will kind of grow up with more than two adults around.”

    “You have a husband?”

    “Yeah.” Paul smiles, thinking of Hugh and feeling his heart skip a beat. 

    “Is he hot?”

    “Oh yeah.”

    “I didn’t know you were gay.”

Paul raises his eyebrows at Connor. “I’m queer, and I have a pretty big flag in my office. Which you’d know if you’d ever come during my office hours and not text me five minutes before the midnight deadline on a report every single time.”

They all laugh. It’s a good natured jibe, and Connor knows he deserves it.

    “What does he look like?” someone else asks, and Paul pulls out his phone.

    “Well, first of all, he’s beautiful and I fell in love with him when he gave me shit for me giving him shit for him humming opera. Here. That’s from our wedding.”

He can’t help but glow a little at all the aww’s the picture gets as the phone is passed around.

    “So he’s got bad taste in music though,” Jaine comments. “How do you deal with that?”

Paul is only on his second glass of wine, but the alcohol is tingling in his fingers and loosening his tongue, so he says, “Yeah, he’s got a horrible taste in music and he’s almost exclusively pescetarian and always goes to bed on time, but his biceps have a circumference of fifteen inches.”

He relishes in the hoots of approval even though it’s not his biceps, and later he allows a few more details of their relationship to slip. It feels warm and fuzzy to tell people about Hugh, even though Paul hasn’t felt his husband’s arms around him or his stubble against his face for almost five months now. That’s his fault for loving a doctor who regularly signs up for giving crisis aid.

He’s a bit too drunk when he finally falls into the empty bed at home, and his mood tanks at that. Hugh still hasn’t texted back or called this week, and Paul feels lonely and sad.

Especially since the conference has been rescheduled, and they lost that one day of seeing each other in-between.

 

 

 

 

The taxi driver seems to know the holiday home Paul means even though he lost the fucking address and can’t remember the house number.  It does make him feel a little bit stupid when he knocks at the door for a while before deciding to leave his suitcase here and try to break into the garden, hopefully not disturbing some family who just had the bad luck to rent a place similar to him and Hugh.

The garden is mostly stone, with a beautiful view of the ocean, late blooming rose bushes filling the air with their sweet scent. 

Paul turns his back to the view and finds open glass sliding doors to the living room, three lounging chairs with one of them occupied by a man more beautiful than the view Paul abandoned.

Hugh has gotten thin, pectorals not fucking H-cups anymore, thighs more lean than face-crushingly strong, and his face does look a little drawn. He also had to take his piercings out before going on the trip, so they probably closed up again and Paul is missing the familiar glint of gold on his husband’s chest, but it’s replaced by a pretty blue pendant on a necklace he hasn’t seen before.

Paul takes a deep breath, trying and failing to calm his excitement before hurrying over. Maybe he’s a little too quick in pressing a hand to Hugh’s sternum and kiss him, because Hugh barely has time to open his eyes, much less to process what’s happening, but he hums happily into the kiss.

Paul lets up - he smells of airplane and his mouth probably tastes similarly, and he wants to shower and brush his teeth and then be held. Hugh smiles up at him, as beautiful as ever.

    “What’s this?” he asks, picking the blue pendant up and turning it over between his fingers. 

It looks like it might be a pale blue shell of something, shaped to look like leaves.

Hugh’s fingers close around it.

    “We visited Luanda one day and I saw this in a little shop. It reminded me of you, and so I got it so I could take a part of you with me everywhere.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! please leave me a comment and come say hi over on [@shroom-boi](http://www.shroom-boi.tumblr.com)!


End file.
